There is not a shred of pastiche in Joel Coen’s grim Macbeth film adaptation ★★★★☆

You might suspect a Shakespearean tragedy, a fratricidal quarrel, behind the splitting of the Coens. Especially after their regular composer Carter Burwell reported last year that the brothers Ethan (1957) and Joel (1954) ‘maybe never again’ will make a film together. But there is no question of any friction, Joel swore to the American press during the presentation of the first solo Coen. Ethan has just been filmed for a while, and he hasn’t.

The oldest half of the directing duo became intrigued by a stage plan by his wife, star actress Frances McDormand. A plan with William Shakespeares Macbeth, which eventually became a feature film, which can now be seen on pay-TV channel Apple and is expected to hit theaters later.

The result, The Tragedy of Macbeth, is a text-fixed, oppressive Shakespeare adaptation, filmed in a contrasting, mystical-nebulous black-and-white that is reminiscent of Ingmar Bergmans The Seventh Seal or the work of the early German film expressionists. The serious tone breaks with what passes for a ‘typical’ Coens film: the ironic frills are gone, not a speck of pastiche in sight. And yet forms Macbeth again not such a strange ramification in the oeuvre of the Coens, who often positioned themselves close to the classics, of Homer’s odyssey in O Brother, Where Art Thou? to the biblical job tidings in A Serious Man.

Actually, they also form quite Coenesque characters, Macbeth and his Lady. Frustrated people, trapped in the sub-top of the medieval royal court, who suddenly see a path to the throne. Lured by delusion and driven by overestimation, with the necessary (and unnecessary) deaths as a result.

Denzel Washington as Macbeth shows himself to be a gifted mutterer of the sharply sharpened Shakespearean sentences, often muttering to himself. Lady Macbeth is a blow to her husband first, more determined and more venomous, Frances McDormand at her worst and best. But in the end, neither Macbeth is prepared for the moral consequences of their bloodshed and betrayal.

The most beautiful supporting role is played by the elastic Kathryn Hunter, who artfully folds her limbs and transforms the three witches who predict Macbeth’s future (“Hail Macbeth, thou who become king!”) into one Gollum-like creaking and scratching figure, with three personalities.

Joel Coen’s most striking intervention in the 17th century The Tragedy of Macbeth (Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy) is the age of the main characters: here the Macbeths have remained childless in their sixties, without a descendant and pretender to the throne in their own bloodline. It makes their belated attempt to rule briefly, at all costs, extra grim and desperate.